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CNN Live Saturday

Japanese Hostages Get Unwelcome Reception; Florida Charter School Charged With Criminal Fraud

Aired April 24, 2004 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: Explosions and gunfire claim more American lives in Iraq. And more Iraqis also fall victim to the terror.
MIGUEL MARUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Miguel Marquez live in Tempe, Arizona. The death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan is being felt across the nation. I'll have a live report.

ARENA: And coming up on "Dollar Signs," how to sell your home fast. Our experts will have the tips you need. You can e-mail your questions to dollarsigns@CNN.com. We'll also that I can your phone calls. Now, that tollfree number is 1-800-807-2620. The phone lines open at the half hour.

Hello. And welcome to CNN LIVE SATURDAY. I'm Kelli Arena in Washington. Those stories and more coming up after this check of the headlines.

More violence erupted across Iraq today, insurgents fired rockets at a coalition base north of Baghdad near the town of Taji. Five U.S. soldiers were killed and were six wounded. U.S. attack Helicopters responded destroying the trucks carrying the rockets.

A United Nations team is surveying the damage of a deadly train explosion in North Korea. The Red Cross now says 154 people were killed in Thursday's massive blast. The highly secretive North Korean government blames the explosion on carelessness. They say a short circuit ignited an oil tanker that collided with rail cars loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

Violence in African nation of Nigeria has left 5 people dead, 2 were injured. Two American workers with Chevron Oil and 3 Nigerian employees were killed in an ambush in the Niger Delta. The area is the site of a bitter feud between 2 warring factions.

Well, hundreds of people packed a hall in Nisua, Minnesota (ph) today for the funeral of Dru Sjodin. The body of the North Dakota college student was found last weekend. Sjodin's disappearance had drawn national attention. That's why her funeral was held in the central Minnesota resort today to accommodate the many people who had searched for her and wanted to pay their respects.

The British military in Iraq reports explosions aboard three boats at an offshore oil terminal in the Persian Gulf at Basra. Coalition personnel were boarding one of the boats just before that blast occurred. No word on casualties or whether it was an accident or a terror attack.

The Basra explosions came on a day of widespread blood shed that claimed at least 26 lives across Iraq. Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf has a grim wrap-up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: It was a day punctuated by violence. North of Baghdad, in Taji, about 12 miles, 20 kilometers north at a 1st Cavalry Division U.S. army base, rockets slammed into the base just before dawn. Five U.S. soldiers were killed and six wounded, three of them critically in the attack according to officials.

They say attack helicopters destroyed a truck that launched the rockets. But it's not clear whether they got the people who launched them, as well.

And here in Baghdad, on what should have been a placid morning in a marketplace in the Shia neighborhood of Sadr City, a mortar attack killed between 6 and 12 people, according to officials, and wounded up to 38, some of them children. The mortar attack was near a U.S. army base, but it's not clear what that target was.

And in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, another explosion there. This one a homemade bomb outside the base. Two Iraqi policemen and two civilians killed, more than a dozen wounded. No U.S. casualties in that one.

And Fallujah west of Baghdad, the flash point of violence there, the U.S. warning that time is running out. Military spokesman General Mark Kimmett said parties to the cease fire had not lived up to their end of the agreements.

GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: We also are looking in bringing out of Fallujah those that are trying to hijack that sovereignty for Fallujah. The foreign fighters, the former Saddam Fedayeen, the Mukha Barat (ph) who don't want to see Iraqi control of that city.

But we will continue to talk. We will continue to try to settle this peacefully. But our patience is not limitless and our patience is not eternal. Should there not be a good faith effort demonstrated by the biligerants inside of Fallujah, the coalition is prepared to act.

ARRAF: Fallujah threatens to be not just a flash point for violence, but according to mosque imams and people in the street, something that could ignite uprisings across the country if the marines make good their threat to take that entire city.

They say that cease fire is shaky, because insurgeries keep firing at them and a U.S. military spokesman says that attacks these days are ranging up to 42 a day against U.S. and Iraqi targets. Incredibly, that's lower than it was a few weeks ago. He says it's too soon to tell whether that trend will continue. Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from Baghdad. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Against the bloody backdrop of on going violence, the U.S.-led coalition is working toward a power transfer giving Iraq limited sovereignty on June 30. CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash joins us live.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And Kelli, we did get some new details of that plan that is being led by U.N. Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. We got that from some U.S. officials this past week. Of course, the goal is to turn over Iraqi sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30 and take it away from the coalition provisional authority.

Now, according to U.S. officials, it's going to be made up of president, two vice presidents, a prime minister, a council of ministers and an advisory group. But the key, both U.N. and U.S. officials say, is that this new government is temporary and therefore should not have the power to make any new laws. They do not want to show Iraqis that an unelected government will be making any new laws for them and save that until, they hope, January of 2005 when they can get a national election up and running.

Now, while one thing we are told by U.S. officials and U.N. officials is that they don't plan to have many of the current 25 members of the Iraqi governing council on this temporary or caretaker government, because they are essentially say that they don't think that this governing council is legitimate.

That, according to Lakhdar Brahimi. He said in an interview with ABC News that's going to air tomorrow, quote, "all opinion polls, and there are a lot taken in Iraq, say that people want something different." He went on to say the fear is that as somebody put it, perhaps too unkindly, they will clone themselves and why do you want to have that?

Now, while one member of the Iraqi governing council, the U.S. officials are practically unanimous in saying that they are not going to rely on somebody in the future, somebody they definitely relied on in the past, and that is Ahmed Chalabi.

He is somebody who was an adviser for some time to the Bush administration, somebody who, from the president on down we are told, has been quite unhappy with not only because they feel they got misleading information about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destructions, but more importantly, in his actions and statements over the past couple of months, talking about the way things are run, even as recently as yesterday, talking about the decision to bring back some members of the baath party, Ahmed Chalabi equating that to bringing back members of the Nazi Party in Germany -- Kelli.

ARENA: All right. Dana Bash live at the White House, thank you.

And in a heart breaking reminder that the conflict in Afghanistan is not over, people in and outside the sports world are mourning a man who gave up a multimillion dollar NFL football contract to enlist in the war on terror. CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The lateral to Pat Tillman, time winding down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move intercepted by Pat Tillman.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Patrick Til man, football star turned Army Ranger hero, remembered at U.S. bases in the country where he was killed.

SPEC. ROSALYN RIDS, U.S. ARMY: It was just shocking because he is an American hero as we all are because we're all, you know, here.

ROBERTSON: His Ranger unit, seen here during a recent mission, was, according to the army, on a joint patrol with Afghan forces close to the border with Pakistan when they they were attacked just as the sun was setting.

COL. MATTHEW REEVES, COALITION SPOKESMAN: The enemy size is unknown at this time. Still kind of working through some of the details on that. That said again, they were ambushed. They dismounted, they moved towards the ambush, fire fight ensued and that's when Specialist Tillman was killed.

ROBERTSON: Few other details of the incident released at a coalition briefing, except that Tillman's two injured colleagues now reported stable.

Along the border mountains, near the latest ambush, troops report attacks on the coalition and its Afghan allies have increased. Two weeks ago, parachute infantry troops were ambushed in the same area. The attackers, not for the first time, according to the troops, pulling back beyond the coalition reach to sanctuary inside Pakistan. Hope here, Tillman's killing not in vain.

CAPT. MICHAEL SCHWAMBER, U.S. ARMY: Of course it brings light hopefully to all-Americans to see and hear about it, that there are still people here, there are still Americans, military and civilians as well, that are here still fighting, you know, for the cause.

ROBERTSON (on camera): In death, Patrick Tillman reaffirmed what he achieved in life, a respect for his sense of honor, duty and patriotism. But perhaps more importantly for the soldiers here, he has cast the spotlight back on a forgotten corner of the war on terrorism. Nic Robertson, CNN, Kabul, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Tillman's home state is in mourning for the 27-year-old who made the fateful decision to trade in his jersey and shoulder pads for an army uniform. CNN's Miguel Marquez is in Tempe, Arizona -- Miguel.

MARQUEZ: And he traded in so much more than that, a $3.6 million 3 years deal with the Cardinals for an $18,000 a year job with the Rangers. This thing is not just being felt here, his death a world away, is being femt certainly at his home where his wife lives at Fort Lewis, just south of Seattle, Washington.

Some soldiers from his unit, from the 75th Ranger Regiment went to visit there yesterday. He was with A Company, 2nd Battalion with the 75th Ranger Regiment. But it's not just in the military where it's being felt, a whole continent away in New York City today where the NFL draft was being held, Paul Tagliabue, the NFL Commissioner before anything got started asked for a moment of silence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL TAGLIABUE, NFL COMMISSIONER: Please join me in a moment of silence to the memory of all those men and women, all those heroes who have given their lives for all of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Now Tillman himself was part of that draft back in 1998. He was a seventh round draft member. He is also being remembered in his hometown certainly, San Jose, California. He went to Leland high school there where he played ball. His teachers who taught him, the students who are now inspired by him, stopped to remember and grieve. Flags were lowered to half staff there.

And certainly here in Arizona, there are two growing memorials, one outside of Sun Devil Stadium where we are now, one at the Cardinals training facility. They're retiring his numbers for both the Cardinals and Sun Devils. Scholarship fund and the like.

We talked to one guy yesterday who knows a heck of a lot about sacrifice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE SANTORO, ARMY SPECIAL FORCES: He could have easily walked away and followed his career. But he chose probably one of the hardest jobs he could ever do. He's a hero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: And a hero for a guy who never wanted to be considered a hero, just wanted to be consider one of many soldiers out there fighting. He was inspired after 9/11 to give up his lucrative football contract. And now he's not just the talk of Arizona, and of Phoenix, but certainly the talk of the nation -- Kelli.

ARENA: And ironically, he probably wouldn't like that, would he? Miguel, thanks so much for that report, Miguel.

24 years ago, a nun's body was discovered in a hospital's chapel. Now, thanks to technology, police say they know who did it. We'll tell you who the surprising suspect is after the break.

Plus, is a Florida school profiting off the backs of students? Why prosecutors are investigating a charter school for at-risk students, .

And still to come...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All kinds of nightmares, but we haven't had to experience them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: How can you make your home selling experience as easy as theirs? Well stick around, coming up in less than half an hour, we'll take your questions on that issue. Just e-mail them to dollarsigns@CNN.com or call us at 1-800-807-2620. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ARENA: Time for headlines from across America. Illiopolis, Illinois: officials confirm last night's fiery chemical plant explosions killed four workers. Two were found dead today, 6 other employees are hospitalized with burns, two of them critical. The FBI and state investigators are looking for the cause.

Toledo, Ohio: police have charged a Roman Catholic priest with killing a nun, whose body was found in a hospital chapel in 1980. Officers say a tip and new technology led to the arrest of the Reverend Gerald Robinson. The 71-year-old nun was stabbed about 30 times and strangled.

Los Angeles: Venice Beach and three others are now smoke free by law. City council yesterday voted to ban smoking on the sands of the beaches and if Santa Monica follows suit, the prohibition will cover a 13-mile stretch of beach.

And a Florida charter school is charged with criminal fraud. It stems from allegations school officials put at risk students to work when they were supposed to be in class. Our John Zarrella reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDNET: Parents had nothing to say as they dropped their children off at a Escambia charter school outside Pensacola. If they're worried about the school's future, they're keeping it to themselves. The charter school has been charged by state prosecutors with criminal organized fraud.

RUSS EDGAR, ASST. STATE ATTORNEY: In essence we have alleged that the school is being paid to teach the children and at the same time the school is being paid to remove them from the school during classroom times for weeks on end.

ZARRELLA: Prosecutors say the school was getting money from the State Department of Education to teach 140 at risk kids. At the same time, it was also getting money from the State Department of Transportation. More than a million dollars over the past five years. The contract with the DOT paid the school $16.25 an hour to put each student to work on road crews. Cleaning up rights of way and medians. Of that, students got paid $10 an hour. Putting the students to work was perfectly legal under the State's Youth Work Experience Program. The program allows them the opportunity to get public service work. The problem prosecutors say is that the students spent most of their time working and only a fraction of the required time learning. Prosecutors say the fraud began in 1999 when the school made $40,000 a year in profits.

The school president told the local newspaper the school is now complying with education requirements. The county school superintendent says the school's charter is not being pulled, but --

JIM PAUL, ESCAMBIA COUNTY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT: If they're using those students in order to help them -- help that school stay financially afloat, there is a serious problem.

ZARRELLA: State education officials say the local school board had the primary responsibility for ensuring that education money was being used to educate.

JIM HORNE, FLORIDA EDUCATION COMMISSIONER: It is up to the local district. We fund the district. The district funds the charter schools. We don't fund charter schools directly.

ZARRELLA: Prosecutors say the school got away with the fraud by falsifying class attendance records and coarse schedules. County officials say for the sake of the school will remain open at least until the end of the school year.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: This just in. Reuters now quotes the U.S. Navy saying two coalition soldiers were killed and five were wounded in that Basra oil platform explosion. We'll have more on the story as it develops.

Well, the Japanese hostages recently released in Iraq better not be expecting a welcome home parade anytime soon. After the break, why Japan's reaction to their freed countrymen has turned hostile.

Coming up at 4:30 Eastern, 1:30 Pacific, selling your home. E- mail your question to dollarsigns@CNN.com or call us at 1-800-807- 2620. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ARENA: When Americans Thomas Hamill and Keith Matthew Maupin were taken who is hostage in Iraq, it was a major news story. And if they're released, they'll undoubtly get a hero's welcome when they come home. But when Japanese hostages were released and came home, they got a very different reception, one you might have a hard time understanding. CNN's Atika Schubert reports from Tokyo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ATIKA SCHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was not a warm welcome; the released Japanese hostages landed in their home country blinded by media lights facing national disapproval bordering on harassment.

Though none of the hostages would speak to the media, they came off the plane bowing deeply in apology.

(on camera): Local media have pried into their private lives, suggesting that the hostages staged their own kidnapping and letters from the public have labeled them Japan's shame.

(voice-over): Politicians have been more subtle, saying hostages should pay the costs of their own release, including the chartered plane out of Iraq.

JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (throught translator): I want those flew into Iraq ignoring the government's warning to consider how much effort my staff and aides, working around the clock to solve the problems they caused.

SCHUBERT: Why the anger? When this video first flashed across the country, they hostages became the center of a heated debate dividing Japan. Should the country support the U.S. occupation of Iraq? Should Japanese troops be in Iraq at all?

Initially, peace activists paraded pictures of the three aide workers and two journalists as martyrs to the cause, but with freedom, some of the hostages said they wanted to remain working in Iraq, adding fuel to the fire.

The public remains evenly divide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Their intentions were admirable, but they and their families did not the handle the stress well, they took the wrong actions and say the wrong things.

SCHUBERT: The abduction, it seems, was only part of their ordeal. Coming home has also taken its toll. Atika Schubert, CNN, Tokyo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Increasing your curb appeal is key if you're looking to sell your home, but painting your front door and putting out a few plants aren't the only things you need to do to close the deal. We'll answer your questions on this important endevour. Next in our "Dollar Signs" segment. Just e-mail them to dollarsigns@CNN.com or call 1- 800--807-2620. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired April 24, 2004 - 16:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: Explosions and gunfire claim more American lives in Iraq. And more Iraqis also fall victim to the terror.
MIGUEL MARUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Miguel Marquez live in Tempe, Arizona. The death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan is being felt across the nation. I'll have a live report.

ARENA: And coming up on "Dollar Signs," how to sell your home fast. Our experts will have the tips you need. You can e-mail your questions to dollarsigns@CNN.com. We'll also that I can your phone calls. Now, that tollfree number is 1-800-807-2620. The phone lines open at the half hour.

Hello. And welcome to CNN LIVE SATURDAY. I'm Kelli Arena in Washington. Those stories and more coming up after this check of the headlines.

More violence erupted across Iraq today, insurgents fired rockets at a coalition base north of Baghdad near the town of Taji. Five U.S. soldiers were killed and were six wounded. U.S. attack Helicopters responded destroying the trucks carrying the rockets.

A United Nations team is surveying the damage of a deadly train explosion in North Korea. The Red Cross now says 154 people were killed in Thursday's massive blast. The highly secretive North Korean government blames the explosion on carelessness. They say a short circuit ignited an oil tanker that collided with rail cars loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

Violence in African nation of Nigeria has left 5 people dead, 2 were injured. Two American workers with Chevron Oil and 3 Nigerian employees were killed in an ambush in the Niger Delta. The area is the site of a bitter feud between 2 warring factions.

Well, hundreds of people packed a hall in Nisua, Minnesota (ph) today for the funeral of Dru Sjodin. The body of the North Dakota college student was found last weekend. Sjodin's disappearance had drawn national attention. That's why her funeral was held in the central Minnesota resort today to accommodate the many people who had searched for her and wanted to pay their respects.

The British military in Iraq reports explosions aboard three boats at an offshore oil terminal in the Persian Gulf at Basra. Coalition personnel were boarding one of the boats just before that blast occurred. No word on casualties or whether it was an accident or a terror attack.

The Basra explosions came on a day of widespread blood shed that claimed at least 26 lives across Iraq. Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf has a grim wrap-up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: It was a day punctuated by violence. North of Baghdad, in Taji, about 12 miles, 20 kilometers north at a 1st Cavalry Division U.S. army base, rockets slammed into the base just before dawn. Five U.S. soldiers were killed and six wounded, three of them critically in the attack according to officials.

They say attack helicopters destroyed a truck that launched the rockets. But it's not clear whether they got the people who launched them, as well.

And here in Baghdad, on what should have been a placid morning in a marketplace in the Shia neighborhood of Sadr City, a mortar attack killed between 6 and 12 people, according to officials, and wounded up to 38, some of them children. The mortar attack was near a U.S. army base, but it's not clear what that target was.

And in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, another explosion there. This one a homemade bomb outside the base. Two Iraqi policemen and two civilians killed, more than a dozen wounded. No U.S. casualties in that one.

And Fallujah west of Baghdad, the flash point of violence there, the U.S. warning that time is running out. Military spokesman General Mark Kimmett said parties to the cease fire had not lived up to their end of the agreements.

GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: We also are looking in bringing out of Fallujah those that are trying to hijack that sovereignty for Fallujah. The foreign fighters, the former Saddam Fedayeen, the Mukha Barat (ph) who don't want to see Iraqi control of that city.

But we will continue to talk. We will continue to try to settle this peacefully. But our patience is not limitless and our patience is not eternal. Should there not be a good faith effort demonstrated by the biligerants inside of Fallujah, the coalition is prepared to act.

ARRAF: Fallujah threatens to be not just a flash point for violence, but according to mosque imams and people in the street, something that could ignite uprisings across the country if the marines make good their threat to take that entire city.

They say that cease fire is shaky, because insurgeries keep firing at them and a U.S. military spokesman says that attacks these days are ranging up to 42 a day against U.S. and Iraqi targets. Incredibly, that's lower than it was a few weeks ago. He says it's too soon to tell whether that trend will continue. Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from Baghdad. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Against the bloody backdrop of on going violence, the U.S.-led coalition is working toward a power transfer giving Iraq limited sovereignty on June 30. CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash joins us live.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And Kelli, we did get some new details of that plan that is being led by U.N. Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. We got that from some U.S. officials this past week. Of course, the goal is to turn over Iraqi sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30 and take it away from the coalition provisional authority.

Now, according to U.S. officials, it's going to be made up of president, two vice presidents, a prime minister, a council of ministers and an advisory group. But the key, both U.N. and U.S. officials say, is that this new government is temporary and therefore should not have the power to make any new laws. They do not want to show Iraqis that an unelected government will be making any new laws for them and save that until, they hope, January of 2005 when they can get a national election up and running.

Now, while one thing we are told by U.S. officials and U.N. officials is that they don't plan to have many of the current 25 members of the Iraqi governing council on this temporary or caretaker government, because they are essentially say that they don't think that this governing council is legitimate.

That, according to Lakhdar Brahimi. He said in an interview with ABC News that's going to air tomorrow, quote, "all opinion polls, and there are a lot taken in Iraq, say that people want something different." He went on to say the fear is that as somebody put it, perhaps too unkindly, they will clone themselves and why do you want to have that?

Now, while one member of the Iraqi governing council, the U.S. officials are practically unanimous in saying that they are not going to rely on somebody in the future, somebody they definitely relied on in the past, and that is Ahmed Chalabi.

He is somebody who was an adviser for some time to the Bush administration, somebody who, from the president on down we are told, has been quite unhappy with not only because they feel they got misleading information about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destructions, but more importantly, in his actions and statements over the past couple of months, talking about the way things are run, even as recently as yesterday, talking about the decision to bring back some members of the baath party, Ahmed Chalabi equating that to bringing back members of the Nazi Party in Germany -- Kelli.

ARENA: All right. Dana Bash live at the White House, thank you.

And in a heart breaking reminder that the conflict in Afghanistan is not over, people in and outside the sports world are mourning a man who gave up a multimillion dollar NFL football contract to enlist in the war on terror. CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The lateral to Pat Tillman, time winding down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move intercepted by Pat Tillman.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Patrick Til man, football star turned Army Ranger hero, remembered at U.S. bases in the country where he was killed.

SPEC. ROSALYN RIDS, U.S. ARMY: It was just shocking because he is an American hero as we all are because we're all, you know, here.

ROBERTSON: His Ranger unit, seen here during a recent mission, was, according to the army, on a joint patrol with Afghan forces close to the border with Pakistan when they they were attacked just as the sun was setting.

COL. MATTHEW REEVES, COALITION SPOKESMAN: The enemy size is unknown at this time. Still kind of working through some of the details on that. That said again, they were ambushed. They dismounted, they moved towards the ambush, fire fight ensued and that's when Specialist Tillman was killed.

ROBERTSON: Few other details of the incident released at a coalition briefing, except that Tillman's two injured colleagues now reported stable.

Along the border mountains, near the latest ambush, troops report attacks on the coalition and its Afghan allies have increased. Two weeks ago, parachute infantry troops were ambushed in the same area. The attackers, not for the first time, according to the troops, pulling back beyond the coalition reach to sanctuary inside Pakistan. Hope here, Tillman's killing not in vain.

CAPT. MICHAEL SCHWAMBER, U.S. ARMY: Of course it brings light hopefully to all-Americans to see and hear about it, that there are still people here, there are still Americans, military and civilians as well, that are here still fighting, you know, for the cause.

ROBERTSON (on camera): In death, Patrick Tillman reaffirmed what he achieved in life, a respect for his sense of honor, duty and patriotism. But perhaps more importantly for the soldiers here, he has cast the spotlight back on a forgotten corner of the war on terrorism. Nic Robertson, CNN, Kabul, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Tillman's home state is in mourning for the 27-year-old who made the fateful decision to trade in his jersey and shoulder pads for an army uniform. CNN's Miguel Marquez is in Tempe, Arizona -- Miguel.

MARQUEZ: And he traded in so much more than that, a $3.6 million 3 years deal with the Cardinals for an $18,000 a year job with the Rangers. This thing is not just being felt here, his death a world away, is being femt certainly at his home where his wife lives at Fort Lewis, just south of Seattle, Washington.

Some soldiers from his unit, from the 75th Ranger Regiment went to visit there yesterday. He was with A Company, 2nd Battalion with the 75th Ranger Regiment. But it's not just in the military where it's being felt, a whole continent away in New York City today where the NFL draft was being held, Paul Tagliabue, the NFL Commissioner before anything got started asked for a moment of silence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL TAGLIABUE, NFL COMMISSIONER: Please join me in a moment of silence to the memory of all those men and women, all those heroes who have given their lives for all of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Now Tillman himself was part of that draft back in 1998. He was a seventh round draft member. He is also being remembered in his hometown certainly, San Jose, California. He went to Leland high school there where he played ball. His teachers who taught him, the students who are now inspired by him, stopped to remember and grieve. Flags were lowered to half staff there.

And certainly here in Arizona, there are two growing memorials, one outside of Sun Devil Stadium where we are now, one at the Cardinals training facility. They're retiring his numbers for both the Cardinals and Sun Devils. Scholarship fund and the like.

We talked to one guy yesterday who knows a heck of a lot about sacrifice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE SANTORO, ARMY SPECIAL FORCES: He could have easily walked away and followed his career. But he chose probably one of the hardest jobs he could ever do. He's a hero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: And a hero for a guy who never wanted to be considered a hero, just wanted to be consider one of many soldiers out there fighting. He was inspired after 9/11 to give up his lucrative football contract. And now he's not just the talk of Arizona, and of Phoenix, but certainly the talk of the nation -- Kelli.

ARENA: And ironically, he probably wouldn't like that, would he? Miguel, thanks so much for that report, Miguel.

24 years ago, a nun's body was discovered in a hospital's chapel. Now, thanks to technology, police say they know who did it. We'll tell you who the surprising suspect is after the break.

Plus, is a Florida school profiting off the backs of students? Why prosecutors are investigating a charter school for at-risk students, .

And still to come...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All kinds of nightmares, but we haven't had to experience them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: How can you make your home selling experience as easy as theirs? Well stick around, coming up in less than half an hour, we'll take your questions on that issue. Just e-mail them to dollarsigns@CNN.com or call us at 1-800-807-2620. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ARENA: Time for headlines from across America. Illiopolis, Illinois: officials confirm last night's fiery chemical plant explosions killed four workers. Two were found dead today, 6 other employees are hospitalized with burns, two of them critical. The FBI and state investigators are looking for the cause.

Toledo, Ohio: police have charged a Roman Catholic priest with killing a nun, whose body was found in a hospital chapel in 1980. Officers say a tip and new technology led to the arrest of the Reverend Gerald Robinson. The 71-year-old nun was stabbed about 30 times and strangled.

Los Angeles: Venice Beach and three others are now smoke free by law. City council yesterday voted to ban smoking on the sands of the beaches and if Santa Monica follows suit, the prohibition will cover a 13-mile stretch of beach.

And a Florida charter school is charged with criminal fraud. It stems from allegations school officials put at risk students to work when they were supposed to be in class. Our John Zarrella reports.

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JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDNET: Parents had nothing to say as they dropped their children off at a Escambia charter school outside Pensacola. If they're worried about the school's future, they're keeping it to themselves. The charter school has been charged by state prosecutors with criminal organized fraud.

RUSS EDGAR, ASST. STATE ATTORNEY: In essence we have alleged that the school is being paid to teach the children and at the same time the school is being paid to remove them from the school during classroom times for weeks on end.

ZARRELLA: Prosecutors say the school was getting money from the State Department of Education to teach 140 at risk kids. At the same time, it was also getting money from the State Department of Transportation. More than a million dollars over the past five years. The contract with the DOT paid the school $16.25 an hour to put each student to work on road crews. Cleaning up rights of way and medians. Of that, students got paid $10 an hour. Putting the students to work was perfectly legal under the State's Youth Work Experience Program. The program allows them the opportunity to get public service work. The problem prosecutors say is that the students spent most of their time working and only a fraction of the required time learning. Prosecutors say the fraud began in 1999 when the school made $40,000 a year in profits.

The school president told the local newspaper the school is now complying with education requirements. The county school superintendent says the school's charter is not being pulled, but --

JIM PAUL, ESCAMBIA COUNTY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT: If they're using those students in order to help them -- help that school stay financially afloat, there is a serious problem.

ZARRELLA: State education officials say the local school board had the primary responsibility for ensuring that education money was being used to educate.

JIM HORNE, FLORIDA EDUCATION COMMISSIONER: It is up to the local district. We fund the district. The district funds the charter schools. We don't fund charter schools directly.

ZARRELLA: Prosecutors say the school got away with the fraud by falsifying class attendance records and coarse schedules. County officials say for the sake of the school will remain open at least until the end of the school year.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

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ARENA: This just in. Reuters now quotes the U.S. Navy saying two coalition soldiers were killed and five were wounded in that Basra oil platform explosion. We'll have more on the story as it develops.

Well, the Japanese hostages recently released in Iraq better not be expecting a welcome home parade anytime soon. After the break, why Japan's reaction to their freed countrymen has turned hostile.

Coming up at 4:30 Eastern, 1:30 Pacific, selling your home. E- mail your question to dollarsigns@CNN.com or call us at 1-800-807- 2620. We'll be right back.

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ARENA: When Americans Thomas Hamill and Keith Matthew Maupin were taken who is hostage in Iraq, it was a major news story. And if they're released, they'll undoubtly get a hero's welcome when they come home. But when Japanese hostages were released and came home, they got a very different reception, one you might have a hard time understanding. CNN's Atika Schubert reports from Tokyo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ATIKA SCHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was not a warm welcome; the released Japanese hostages landed in their home country blinded by media lights facing national disapproval bordering on harassment.

Though none of the hostages would speak to the media, they came off the plane bowing deeply in apology.

(on camera): Local media have pried into their private lives, suggesting that the hostages staged their own kidnapping and letters from the public have labeled them Japan's shame.

(voice-over): Politicians have been more subtle, saying hostages should pay the costs of their own release, including the chartered plane out of Iraq.

JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (throught translator): I want those flew into Iraq ignoring the government's warning to consider how much effort my staff and aides, working around the clock to solve the problems they caused.

SCHUBERT: Why the anger? When this video first flashed across the country, they hostages became the center of a heated debate dividing Japan. Should the country support the U.S. occupation of Iraq? Should Japanese troops be in Iraq at all?

Initially, peace activists paraded pictures of the three aide workers and two journalists as martyrs to the cause, but with freedom, some of the hostages said they wanted to remain working in Iraq, adding fuel to the fire.

The public remains evenly divide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Their intentions were admirable, but they and their families did not the handle the stress well, they took the wrong actions and say the wrong things.

SCHUBERT: The abduction, it seems, was only part of their ordeal. Coming home has also taken its toll. Atika Schubert, CNN, Tokyo.

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ARENA: Increasing your curb appeal is key if you're looking to sell your home, but painting your front door and putting out a few plants aren't the only things you need to do to close the deal. We'll answer your questions on this important endevour. Next in our "Dollar Signs" segment. Just e-mail them to dollarsigns@CNN.com or call 1- 800--807-2620. We'll be right back.

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